


Memoro de la stono

by dreamingcicadas



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Lots of brotherly and sisterly fluff, free form, i Just., i'm awful.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9827093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingcicadas/pseuds/dreamingcicadas
Summary: Fill for akinkmeme promptWhere Gladiolus likes to paint in his spare time.Spoilers for the entire game.





	

He didn’t know when it all started, at first it was just a leisurely activity he picked up for ninety-nine cents with a five-year-old Iris. Even in his youth Gladiolus Amicitia was built like a tank. It was jarring for most to see a man with such a physique partake in a less than masculine activity. But Gladiolus didn’t care, he could pump metal and wear flower crowns, any time, any day--and he’d do it while painting unicorns. It wasn’t going to stop any time soon, that was for sure.

 

Iris enjoyed painting blue lilies, her favorite blossom ever since she saw Prince Noctis framed by them in the royal garden.  His little sister requested that Gladio should paint pink flowers, because her brother painted the best pink flowers. After all, he was the heir to the Amicitia nobility, and not one to shirk his duties. Many Saturday nights Clarus would unlock the flat to find Iris snuggled up his snoring son, covered with dozens of painted sheets curling from the wetness of pink acrylic. 

 

When Iris grew out of this phase Gladiolus realized how much he didn’t. The cheap dollar store paints had spiralled into well-researched, but expensive materials. Desperate to sate his thirst for knowledge, he even sneakily carded a second library ID so he could take out even more books. 

 

Many years later, Gladiolus filled sketchbook after sketchbook to the brim with anything that caught his interest. From the hand-eye coordinations exercises, to observational studies of people, places, and things. Gladiolus saw the blank canvases and pages as a way to explore the world in ways word could simply not. Iris had kept record of her brother’s progression through his annual paintings of lilies. As each year passed, it was getting harder to discern the difference between a photo and her brother’s handiwork. It wasn’t long after people had caught onto this hobby of his and before he knew it, Gladiolus was taking in all kinds of requests. 

 

Noctis was the first to notice. The request was a collaboration between the prince and his freckled best friend: fanart of the two drawn as characters in their beloved fantasy game,King’s Knight. Gladiolus arched a brow and snapped the appropriate reference photos of them. And even though they desired the ultra baddass look of a five star character--he simply could not see it.

 

Gladiolus was a man of sophistication, after all.

 

They were impressed with the drawing, of course they would, but not so much by the fact that Gladio had imagined them as gangly two-stars. Nonetheless, when Gladiolus visited the prince in his flat one day, he was surprised to see the painting framed on the wall. 

 

Ignis was next, offering payment for a quaint mountainside cabin overlooking a babbling stream. He refused the money and when Ignis went to protest, the man was quieted by the fact that this was Gladiolus’ version of cooking. 

 

The painting took weeks to complete, mostly because he was layering oils instead of acrylics. Though, all agonizing hours of his free time paid off the moment Ignis’ eyes lit upon seeing it.

 

When the group had left on their roadtrip, Gladiolus made sure to pack some sketchbooks for the road. He recalled from his many outings that most outposts didn’t have much other than toiletries and fast food. During the day, Prompto kept a log of all the excitement, the snapshots that dispersed in seconds. Gladiolus kept a record of all the slow moments, of the prince curled up against his chocobo, the crinkling flame, or the meteor off in the distance of Duscae. Sometimes he stole a few photos from Prompto to replicate later, keeping in mind the gestures and the line of action. He kept drawing when he could, that spark from long ago never smoldering down.

 

After Ignis had lost his eyesight, it changed. 

 

He felt anger, and the lines cutting into his pages didn’t carry the same impact as they did before. So when their lives had dwindled down to nothing but fighting, Gladiolus didn’t realize when he lost the art.

 

Gladiolus wanted to scream, wanted to cry out, and Noctis was perfect for his abuse. Photographs were purely compositional skill, nothing to it. So he was grateful to still have that still in his life. He never managed to pick up the paper and pencil after that, and soon enough they spiralled down deeper into the rabbit hole. 

 

Night had completely swallowed the sun, and with it their prince.

 

Months had turned to years, and Gladiolus still never returned to painting, there wasn’t much to paint when all he saw was darkness, anyway. Sometimes he’d scribble a tiny doodle of the team together, or a chocobo. Nothing much.

 

When he met up with the famed daemonslayer after all these years, he was surprised to see Iris had managed to save a few of his firsts, a sketchbook of all the important bits in his life. A quick charcoal portrait of a teenaged Noctis smudged by the abuse of time. He shuffled the papers, and tears dropped onto a yellowed, crinkled picture of pink flowers. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Based around this song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9SQzeALyH0  
> I just have a lot feels... okay. Will come back to fix the typos...probably.


End file.
